A morning with Shrek

A morning with Shrek
2010.06.03.

Several years ago I used to advertise my dogs waiting for adoption in one of the big newspapers. Then I decided to give up this form of advertisement as mostly large-scale breeders put their ads in those papers and accordingly, those who called me were usually everything but responsible animal keepers. So to say, I wouldn't have given them a toy dog, let alone a living one.

One morning, unthinkably early – a few minutes after 5 a.m. - my phone rang. I saw the number displayed so I thought I would call him or her back when I get up and can communicate with a stranger seemingly suffering from insomnia.
So I called back at 7 a.m., with a cup of coffee in my hand.
“Good morning, I am X.Y. and I received a call from your number a few hours ago.”
A silence of astonishment at the other end of the line. I say “hello” for a number of times until I get an answer.
“OK, then give me the data.”
Now the silence of astonishment is on my side.
“Ehhhm... what do you mean?”
“What's the nature of the situation?”
He has a voice like Shrek and I start to get suspicious – maybe I'm in the middle of a movie? Too bad I don't get the storyline.
“Ehhm... the nature of the situation is that you called me at 5 a.m. this morning, supposedly because you wanted to ask something. Unfortunately I was unable to pick up the phone so now I have called you back and I'll be happy to answer your question, whatever it may be.”

A silence of astonishment again. It seems that my partner needs a couple of seconds to comprehend the pieces of information he has been given. I can almost see him wondering what he was doing this morning, whom he called and what he wanted to ask. Then the light of understanding flashes in his mind, and he says triumphantly:

“Yeees, I know, you're that super-something, right?”

“Ehhm...” This time it is my brain that is desperately looking for an answer. What the hell is this, some kind of a candid camera show?

“You know, from the newspaper!”, he says encouragingly.
Then I think: oh yes, he must have called me for the dogs. Of course, I don't think I will give him a dog after all this strange fuzz, but let's go the whole way.

“Yes, that's me”, I answer.

“You wanna work?”, he asks.

“No.”

“You're selling cellphones?”, he goes on.

“No.”

He is silent for a while – maybe he wonders what the hell it can be if it's so early in the morning and it's not about cellphones.

“Dogs?”

“No”, I reply and want to finish the whole pathetic conversation. But he does not give up, still has another guess.

“Sex?”

“Well, that's not a bad thing, but if you don't mind, I prefer relationships based on mutual trust and respect, so I guess this must have been a wrong number, have a nice day”, I answer, hang up, and laugh so hard that I spill the whole cup of coffee on myself...